


California Stars

by LaSordide



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Historical, Hippies, M/M, Porn, Recreational Drug Use, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:08:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaSordide/pseuds/LaSordide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic inspired by Woody Guthrie which eventually devolves into filthy, romantic homo porn (because that is the BEST KIND) set in 1969 Berkeley. </p><p>Thank you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	California Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I had taken this down because a reader called it "anti-Semitic," but then explained that she felt Eames exhibited some anti-Semitism in the story. While I'm glad she didn't feel it had been written anti-Semitically (oh god, SPELLING???) - I freaked out and took it down. I don't want to hurt anybody.
> 
> So, I'm putting it back up with that caveat, ok? A reader who is Jewish found my version of Eames anti-Semitic, and mea culpa for that - not my intent, but then, I'm not Jewish. Read at your own risk.
> 
> I'm reposting it from an old Word file, so - sorry for any formatting fuck-ups, too. I want to keep the story here, but apparently I'm too lazy to deal w/ formatting. - Sordide

**Chapter 1**

 

It’s another obscenely perfect Spring day in early May in Berkeley, warm and sunny and lovely, the semester almost out, and Eames’ head is so filled with the Frankfurt School at the moment he can hardly think straight. He grabs his bag, Adorno, Horkheimer and Benjamin all bouncing against his hip, and heads to his favorite spot in the People’s Park – a tiny, secluded rise that’s far enough from the makeshift stage that he won’t have to endure any spontaneous poetry from the locals, but that’s central enough to everything happening in the park that he can people watch. Observe the natives in their habitat like a good colonial, as it were.

 

Also, the spot has a botanical combination of cedars and palms happening that’s one of the weirdest things Eames has ever seen in nature. There are things about California that will always make him stop in wonder and awe, really.

 

He’s about to fish the pack of Embassy Filters out of his bag for a smoke when he spies a pair of long legs in tight jeans that emerge from behind the trunk of one of the palm trees in his favorite spot. The legs terminate in a pair of smart black boots with a squared toe and low heel. A thick, foggy plume of what can only be marijuana smoke emanates from the little sanctuary.

 

Eames stops in his tracks, somewhat crestfallen that his special spot is currently occupied. That is, until the rest of said occupant brings his upper body out of hiding, eases himself onto his back on the shady ground with all of the grace of a jungle cat, a paperback book in one hand and a joint in the other.

 

He goes into a sinuous full stretch and then notices Eames after a heartbeat, looks at him upside down from where his head is pillowed on the soft grass and smiles. “Why, hel _lo_ ,” he says to Eames confidently.

 

Eames stands there, poleaxed for a moment, unable to respond. The man’s hair is longish, near black, its soft waves spilling out around his face onto the ground. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt with the neck open under a natty tweed vest that hugs his upper body like a sheath. There’s the glint of a strand of glass love beads at his clavicle. He puts the book down on his abdomen while he watches Eames with huge dark eyes.

 

Eames glances down at the book’s cover. Walter Benjamin’s _Illuminations_.

 

 _Fuck_ , Eames thinks. _Fuck, you are bloody done for_. Instead he says, “Sorry – didn’t mean to intrude.”

 

Natty Dresser’s smile grows wider. Eames can see the man look him up and down from where he lies, taking in his typical student outfit of sandals, loose pants and a gauzy white kurta. He pats the ground next him in invitation with one hand and waves his joint in the air with the other, says, “Toke?”

 

Apparently Eames has not been found to be wanting. Huh. Well, then.

 

Who is Eames to take a pass on traditional northern Californian hospitality, anyway? He shifts his bookbag and sits down as the other man sits up again next to him, smiling slyly, purposely pressing their shoulders together, and hands over the joint. Eames takes a hit off the thing that’s deeper than is probably advisable considering his instant reaction to Natty here, but – fuck it. Natty’s watching him with that smile and those narrow almond eyes, his beautiful dark hair all curling around his angular face, Benjamin still open and cradled on his thin hips.

 

Eames expels the thick smoke from his lungs after a tick and hands the joint back with a thank you, and Natty extends his hand and offers his name,

 

“I’m Arthur. Arthur Leventhal.”

 

And Eames thinks two things simultaneously: _fuck_ and _shitgoddamn_.

 

No, wait.

 

There are actually _layers_ to the things he’s thinking simultaneously, and they hit him like a tornado hitting an American trailer park. The first is _Jewish, fuck, he would have to be Jewish_ , because Eames has a _thing_ , a kink, for slender, intelligent Jewish boys that is approximately the size of Alaska. He recognizes instantly that, no matter the outcome of this meeting – even if Arthur joins the Peace Corps in Nigeria or is drafted into the Army tomorrow and Eames never sees him again - he is _done_ for, he will simply _never recover_ from those eyes.

 

The second, possibly much more ominous layer has to do with the fact that he thinks he knows who Arthur must be. And who Arthur probably is is _not good_ , is _off limits_.

 

Arthur is almost certainly his dissertation advisor’s son and stepson, respectively. He’s never seen a picture of the boy, but – he’s heard Dom mention the name Arthur in passing. And Arthur has Mal’s lithe grace, her slim form, her French style, perfect pale olive skin and soft dark curls. And if this is the case, then he also knows Arthur is still in high school. Arthur is _seventeen_.

 

“Well,” Eames says as stiffly as he can given the THC working through his system. Christ, he can feel his joints actually softening, his limbs all loose in response the single drag he took off Arthur’s thick doobie and – _no, no, it WILL NOT DO to go there_ , he tells himself. _No more thinking about Arthur’s well-put together thick ANYTHING, for the love of God_. “Well,” he says again.

 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, licking his lips. “Yeah, you mentioned.” Arthur takes a last hit off the joint and extinguishes it, puts the remaining roach in a soft little Chinese embroidered silk bag. He reaches behind him and, as if magically, produces a wreath of large white flowers and thick jade green leaves that he pops on his head. Eames’ nostrils are suddenly filled with the scent of gardenia.

 

It should make him look like a ridiculous hippie, Eames thinks, but no. It makes him look more like a bored Greek god come down to earth for a little fun with some mere mortals. It makes him utterly, terrifyingly beguiling.

 

Eames realizes he hasn’t left yet. That, instead of leaving, he’s actually gotten closer to Arthur, their sides now fully pressed against one another.

 

Arthur inserts his index finger beneath the little braided leather bracelet on Eames’ right wrist and idly caresses the skin there, says, “Hey. I don’t know how they do it in England, but – mainly when a guy smokes another guy up and tells him his name in America, there’s more like an _exchange_ of names.”

 

“What?” Eames says stupidly. “Oh, right, of course – I’m Eames. Tom Eames, but – just Eames.”

 

“Well, just Eames,” Arthur says as he removes his finger from Eames’ wrist, packs his bag together and stands up. Eames is immediately bereft from the loss of contact. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

 

Eames watches Arthur saunter off, noting he’s at least as good looking from the back as he is from the front. Every single little pocket of Hippies, Diggers, Squatters and every other subcategory of Bay Area Freak that’s stretched out on the grass in the sun greets him by name as he makes his way out of the park. Arthur waves and says hi back, never slowing down once.

 

 

 

**Chapter 2**

 

 

He hangs out at his spot in the park sporadically over the next week hoping, if he’s at all honest with himself, to run into Arthur. Eames is not honest with himself, and Arthur doesn’t return. It’s hard to concentrate on his studies, anyway.

 

And then May 15th rolls around, and Governor Reagan suddenly and without warning makes good on his promise to crack down on Berkeley’s tolerance of communists and sex deviants. Eames arrives at the park from the graduate library to find his little spot razed, an eight foot fence erected around its entire perimeter, and two or three hundred cops in full riot gear facing off several thousand unarmed protesters.

 

He turns 180 degrees and heads east on Telegraph Hill to his little apartment instead. There he and his flatmate, Yusuf, a doctoral chemistry student from Oxford, turn on their radio and listen to the live news reports of the chaos taking place a mere block away. Eames can hear the din of shouts and the SHUNK! of tear gas canisters being fired at students over the broadcast a millisecond before he can hear it in person.

 

The campus and the city are in shock the entire rest of the week, and the semester abruptly and rather sadly comes to a close. Eames receives an invitation from the Cobbs in the mail in the form of a note in Mal’s neat handwriting:

           

_Mr. Eames –_

_In light of the current tenor of the city, we’ve decided to forgo our normal end-of semester celebration in favor of a small get together with just a select few graduate students. Please join us on Friday, 23 May, beginning at 8 PM for food and refreshments. Let us know if you cannot make it._

_P.S., bring your swimsuit._

_Sincerely yours, Mal_

 

 

The Cobbs’ end of year party is a bit legendary among the students at the University. One must generally be an undergraduate senior or higher in excellent standing under their aegis within the Philosophy department in order to win an invitation. This would have been Eames’ first time attending it, but he has to admit being intrigued by a “small get together” with them as well. He’s heard all sorts of rumors about the fascinating and progressive things they’ve done to their house, as well as the fascinating and progressive things people get up to there.

 

He’s all but given up on guessing whether or not Arthur will be there – not that it matters one way or another. He sends his RSVP.

 

The afternoon of the 23rd arrives on the wave of several days of unusually hot and sticky weather that’s only added to the general sense of anxiety and unease of the city’s residents. He puts on a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt, adds a light cardigan for the sake of formality. Not that the Drs. Cobb are anything like formal, but. Eames is still _English_.

 

He picks up a bottle of decent French wine at the corner liquor store and walks the leafy three blocks to the house, is at their doorstep by 8:45. He can hear the “small get together” about a half a block before he can see the house, which is a lovely little Arts and Crafts Movement affair with a porticoed front yard overgrown with gnarled, clinging grape vines and festooned with tiny fairy lights and paper lanterns glowing in the twilight. He can hear peals of delighted laughter emanating from the backyard, the bump and grind of Cream’s _Disraeli Gears_ on the hi-fi. There’s a hand-stenciled sign on the front door that reads ENTER, FRIEND, and Eames does exactly that.

 

While he’s been studying with the Cobbs for a year now, this is the first time he’s been invited to the house. Eames finds the interior every bit as compelling and interesting as the outside, and as the Cobbs themselves: the living room walls are lined with shelves filled with the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Artaud, Habermas, Marcuse, Wittgenstein, Buckminster Fuller, Nin, Tolkien, Henry Miller and Timothy Leary. He counts tomes in a minimum of five different languages and a multitude of different subjects, and his awe and admiration of the Cobbs ratchets up impossibly higher.

 

Eames has just started to step away from the books and notice the art prints that line the walls between the shelves – the majority of which appear to his untrained eye to be of Japanese origin, many of them shockingly erotic – when Mal herself breezes through the entryway of the living room and greets him happily with a _cherie_! and a glass flute of something an eerie green. The color is already high in her cheeks, the blush there matching the exotic crimson paisley swirls of her long sleeveless dress.

 

He hands her the bottle of wine which she complements graciously, beckoning him into the kitchen with her. “We have beer, we have wine, we have all of the cocktails your heart might desire including, I dare say, gin and _toniques_ , your national drink abroad, no?” She says gin like “ _zhiiin_ ” as she glides around the kitchen, pointing our Eames’ different options. She waves her glass and a beautifully filigreed slotted spoon in the air at him and says conspiratorially, “And we have the Green Fairy, should you be interested.”

 

Eames is so distracted for a moment by the movement of her hand in the air when she waved the glass at him that he doesn’t catch himself before assenting to a glass of contraband absinthe, no doubt smuggled into the country by Mal from her last visit home. He’s trying to remember where he’s seen such a delicate, louche gesture before, the memory just at the edges of his mind, on the tip of his tongue. When Mal hands him the glass, the smell distinctly floral-herbal, his eyes flit up to hers and he remembers: Arthur, under the trees, the joint he’d offered Eames in his delicate hand.

 

“A la votre, cheri,” Mal says, tipping her glass to him. “To your health, darling.” She drains her glass and nods at Eames, tells him, “Bottoms up.” He does the same, and after she’s fixed him his first refill, she sends him off to mingle.

 

++++

 

Eames has been at the party for a little over an hour, chatting other grad students up and smoking and drinking out of the little glass that Mal has stealthily kept filled when he realizes he is very, very drunk. Drunk in a way he’s never quite been before – not falling down drunk, but happily, almost liminally drunk. _Floating_.

 

He also has to piss like a racehorse. The downstairs toilet is occupied, so Eames climbs the stairs to the small upper story where there’s rumor of a second loo. It exists, and is mercifully empty. Eames flips the light on and locks the door, unzips and experiences relief, blessed relief. He peers into the mirror at himself as he washes his hands in the sink, fixes his hair a little, and opens the door to leave when it flies open and another body rushes into the room.

 

Eames is in too much of a delicious absinthe-induced stupor to do much more than blink in surprise. And then his eyes refocus on the face in front of him.

 

“Eames,” Arthur growls, backing him up against the sink. “I was hoping you’d come.”

 

Eames can’t get a word in before Arthur is on him like a leopard on an antelope. He jams the lock button closed on the bathroom’s door and then, thrillingly, snakes his hands into Eames’ t-shirt, up his sides and onto his chest, presses their mouths together.

 

“Arthur,” Eames says after he breaks the kiss. He doesn’t know if it’s just the absinthe or the adrenaline that’s hit his system with Arthur pawing his naked skin, or some terrible and fierce chemical interaction of the two, but – he’s incapable of rubbing two synapses together suddenly. He knows there’s a reason they shouldn’t be doing this, but he’s fucked if he can remember what that was now, Arthur’s mouth moving over his jugular, his hands at Eames’ belt.

 

It all happens so fast. Arthur makes short work of Eames’ jeans and shorts, shoving them down his thighs, and then settles on his knees in front of Eames.

 

“Fuck,” Arthur whispers, breathless, gaping at Eames’ already three-quarters hard cock. “Fuck, you’re uncut.”

 

All Eames can manage is to stand there with his jaw open in shock at the display of extreme lasciviousness he’s just witnessed, his cock bobbing further upward with every beat of his heart, pointing directly at Arthur’s face like a dog in desperate need of a pat on the head. And then he feels the bizarre need to apologize for his obviously weird, foreign genitalia. And _then_ realizes Arthur’s staring at his dick with something akin to awe.

 

“It’s pretty normal in England,” Eames stutters.

 

Arthur lets out an overjoyed giggle and says, “Fuck, I’ve never seen one before.” He just stays there a moment, kneeling in front of Eames, examining it. Eames has never felt a stranger combination of arousal and _inspection_ before. Arthur moves a fraction closer to his exposed crotch, takes a deep inhale at the skin at the juncture of Eames’ cock and scrotum, then rubs his entire face into his bush like a fucking cat. Eames clutches the edge of the bathroom’s porcelain vanity in a death grip and whimpers, suspended by Arthur’s next move.

 

Arthur catches the movement of his hands and flicks his eyes up to Eames’, gives him that sly smile. “I need it in my mouth,” he says, and swallows Eames down in one gulp.

 

There’s an American tv show Eames has seen a number of times, mainly stoned on the couch with Yusuf, that flashes through his mind unbidden as he watches Arthur go down: _Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom_. That’s what this is fucking like, he thinks. Like one of those insane, man-sized snakes they have in the Amazon, what are they called now? _Anacondas_ , yes, anacondas – like an anaconda lovingly, slowly curling up to a sleeping piglet, winding around it ever so gently and then _swallowing it fucking whole_ –

 

And _for the love of Christ and the Virgin Mother_ , why can’t Eames get his brain to shut up in these situations? He bangs the back of his head on the medicine cabinet mirror behind him in an effort to clear his mind and lets out the quietest strangled moan he can manage.

 

Arthur appears to take this as encouragement and stuffs Eames’ engorged cock even further down his slender throat. He takes his hands off Eames’ hips for a moment to pry Eames’ now bone-white fingers off the vanity and slide them into his hair, putting pressure on them, silently urging Eames to fuck his mouth. Eames starts off with nothing but the gentlest thrusts, but Arthur’s moans and suction both increase with his every drive into him to the point where Eames is afraid of drawing attention and starts to push into him with more force partly in an effort to quiet him down.

 

He gets his hips gripped hard enough to bruise - in return, he suspects, for being a good boy, _and how does someone on his knees with his mouth stuffed full of cock still manage to communicate his dominance like that?_ – and keens a brief moan to Arthur, trying to warn him of his impending orgasm. Arthur just makes a noise like a growl, _mmmmmmmmm_ , and Eames pulls one of his hands off Arthur’s head just in time to shove a fist into his own mouth, silencing the shout that threatens to loose itself when he comes.

 

When he regains some semblance of coherence he finds Arthur gently tucking him back into his pants, smug satisfaction on his pretty face, still looking natty and dapper as ever, whereas Eames feels like he’s been dosed with some extremely good acid and then hit by a truck.

 

Arthur dips his head into Eames’ neck and presses kisses there, on his earlobe, his cheek, and finally his mouth. He grins at Eames, whispers in his ear, “That was great. Hey, you should leave first, ok? So we don’t, uh, arouse suspicion,” pokes his head into the hallway, and then pushes Eames out the door.

 

Totally stunned and flabbergasted, Eames makes his way slowly down the hardwood stairs. He doesn’t quite trust the strangely gelatinous joints in his shaking legs, his inability to make sense of anything that’s just taken place in the past several minutes. It’s not even 10 PM ad he feels wrecked.

 

He walks through the kitchen, eyeing Dom, Mal, and several grad students of both sexes through the sliding glass door to the backyard; they’re all in swimsuits and piled into the Cobb’s custom-built hot tub, talking and drinking and shrieking.

 

Eames has never seen a hot tub before. _Maybe next time_ , he thinks, and makes a hasty exit before whatever hedonistic swinger’s club the Cobbs form on an annual basis with their students reels him back in.

 

 

**Chapter 3**

 

Eames wakes the following Saturday at noon with the single worst hangover he has ever experienced. His funky tongue feels like it’s grown some kind of cottony fungus over night and melded itself with the skin of his palette, all of his features feel like they’re smashed together on the left side of his face, and the throbbing in his head screeches at him to LAY BACK DOWN, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY the moment he attempts to lift his head from his pillow. Outside, birds are singing sweetly at the same time that riot cops with concussion grenades and double-oughts are apparently marching down his block.

 

  _Jesus_. Welcome to Fucking Berkeley. Now, Go Home.

 

 _Did I really drink that bloody much?_ he thinks. And then he remembers: absinthe. And after that he remembers: _Arthur_.

 

 _Shit_. Shit shit shitshit _shitholymotherfuckingSHIT_.

 

 _Arthur_. The name hangs there for Eames like an anchor that will pull him down and down and down because Arthur is _seventeen_ and the son of his dissertation advisers and Eames is twenty-four and obviously on the verge of being deported for pedophilia.

 

He groans into his pillow loud enough, apparently, to alert Yusuf, who appears in Eames’ doorway a moment later with a knowing look on his face.

 

“That good, yeah?” he asks, sympathetic.

 

Eames makes a sobbing sound into his pillow and groans at his flatmate, “Yusuf. Yusuf… _where is my moral compass_?”

 

“Hang on,” Yusuf says. He comes back in a moment with a strangely fuschia-tinged tincture and a tiny juice glass of water. Yusuf mixes the two together and hands Eames a light pink chemical cocktail that looks innocent enough, but the smell of which makes Eames’ already angry stomach lurch alarmingly.

 

“Agggh,” Eames moans. “What the fuck is it? Tell me it’s aspirin, please.”

 

“Sure, it’s bloody aspirin. Trust me, just fucking drink it. You won’t understand the chemistry anyway and I promise it’ll make you feel better, all right?” Yusuf pushes the glass forward and Eames gulps it down and keeps it there.

 

“Yusuf,” Eames moans miserably. “Why does being easy keep getting harder?”

 

Yusuf just shakes his head sadly at him and says, “Eames. Don’t be a fool. Take it from someone who has known you awhile, yeah?” He crosses his arms at his chest and regards Eames sharply. “For you, slutting around has never been easy. Too much good Catholic boy in you.” He raps on the doorjamb a couple of times, maybe considering whether or not he’s said too much, tells Eames to feel better, and leaves.

 

Eames stays in bed until his bladder is positively screaming at him and then gingerly starts for the toilet. Yusuf’s foul pink medicine was spot-on: his headache and nausea have already significantly abated. Thank Christ for chemistry PhDs.

 

The rest of the day is spent taking it easy, his body a mess, his head a minefield of remorse.

 

++++

 

He runs into Mal at the grocery store a few days later. Eames feels like he should be guiltily skulking around her, beg her for a sharp French slap across the face, maybe prostrate himself at her heels like the bad dog he is, but – he reminds himself she has no idea what transpired between himself and her son. Her sweet, fresh peach of a seventeen year old – _you MUST STOP that_ , he nearly screams aloud in the middle of the checkout.

 

Mal notices the creepy internal battle going on in Eames’ head with alarm and asks, “Darling, are quite all right?”

 

“Fine,” Eames shrugs. “Girl trouble.” She gives him a sly look that manages to make her look exactly like a feminine version of Arthur, and Eames attempts to lock onto something mundane to change the subject. He glances at Mal’s shopping cart, notices all the sodas and fruit and snacks therein, says, “Getting prepared for another party?”

 

“Yes,” she says, delighted. “Arthur’s graduation party.” She makes a parody of a sad face and says, “Alors, mon petit garçon est tous grandi.”

 

Eames is frankly scared of what his face might be betraying right now. He tries to force it into a kind of benign interest when he asks, “And will he be going away to college?” _Please say he’ll be going far, far away to college_.

 

“ _Non_! He will be staying here with us, going to Berkeley. The tuition remission is too good to pass up, and it is an excellent education, as you well know.”

 

“Right,” Eames replies.

 

Mal gives him and his groceries a lift home in her black 67 Plymouth Valiant. Like all things Cobb, Eames notes that the car treads the line between avant-garde and respectable very, very subtly.

 

After he’s spent a couple hours glumly puttering around his apartment, Eames convinces himself to brave the standoff between students and police and get to his carrel at the graduate library. He’s been letting his studies slide the past week or so, his thoughts mired in… other things.

 

He packs his bag and walks slowly up Telegraph towards campus, passing a different Flower Child playing a folk song on guitar or pick up Frisbee game every few feet. It’s nice. Once he’s gotten away from People’s Park, things seem almost normal in the neighborhood today, he thinks, heaving himself up the short Classical Revival steps of Doe Library. Maybe the police riots have died down permanently.

 

He stops by the front desk to see if any of the books he’s requested have come in, then makes his way into the serene dim of the graduate stacks.

 

There are few students making use of the library on a sunny late May day after school has let out, and those who have stuck around seem to generally be part of the protests happening, so Eames is surprised to see the glow of one of the lamps above the carrels at the end of the Critical Theory stack.

 

Legs that go on and on like I-5, legs that go on _forever_ , rest atop Eames’ carrel, crossed at the ankle. Christ, the boots are tobacco brown this time, the pants cut extra slim and in a summer weight tan wool. Eames hears the soft turn of a page, the creak of the heavy wooden swivel chair he’s claimed as his own, and his mouth goes dry.

 

There’s a sigh that comes from just beyond the stack. “I was wondering when you were gonna show up,” Arthur says. He brings his legs down to the floor and gracefully tips forward in the chair, peering at Eames hiding behind the shelves.

 

Arthur’s gaze turns predatory almost instantly. He rakes his eyes up Eames’ body from his feet to his face, then grins with what Eames thinks may be too many teeth. Eames shivers in response and Arthur catches it, grins harder.

 

“Eames,” he says. “C’mere.”

 

“No,” Eames whispers. He shakes his head, feeling like a stubborn toddler.

 

Arthur’s face goes hard. “Eames,” he says again. He points at the ground by his feet. “Come _here_.”

 

“Arthur,” Eames whines.

 

“ _Now_ ,” Arthur demands, his eyes gone narrow with disbelief at Eames’ apparent lack of respect for his authority. He slaps his thigh in emphasis at Eames, then curls his index finger at him: _right this MINUTE_.

 

He’s in another tight vest, Eames realizes, this time paired with a sedate, tasteful tie tightly knotted at his handsome throat that matches the color of the chestnut locks curling around his irritated face. Arthur’s mouth is tight with anger, one eyebrow arched, his cheeks slightly pinked. He points his finger back down to his feet and that’s all it takes - Eames goes.

 

“That’s better,” Arthur soothes, smiling up at him gently. “Isn’t that better?” He puts his hands proprietarily on Eames’ hips, up his t-shirt again, runs the pads of his thumbs over Eames’ nipples, and Eames has to agree: _better_ , yes – better.

 

Arthur immediately goes for his belt, uncinching the buckle without ever breaking eye contact. The clink of the brass and the zip of his fly must be audible for miles, Eames thinks, but – there’s no one around.

 

Arthur frees him from his shorts, already hard to the point that he’s leaking, the head peeking out from the hood, and Arthur hasn’t even looked at it yet, hasn’t really even touched him. Eames groans.

 

“I missed you,” Arthur whispers. He puts his tongue out, gives the head of Eames’ cock a little kitten lick without ever looking away from his face. It makes Eames just about scream right there in the library and he buries his face in his hands. “I missed you a lot,” Arthur continues his kitten licks, briefly pushes the tip of his tongue beneath the edge of where Eames’ foreskin hasn’t entirely retracted and caresses the arc of his corona. “Did you miss me?” He asks, moving down to trace the veins of Eames’ shaft.

 

Eames finally takes his hands off his face and looks down at Arthur, strokes his cheekbone. “You’ve no idea, darling,” he murmurs.

 

Arthur brings him off in no time, ends up with that same ridiculously happy and satisfied smile on his face and languidly tips himself back in the swivel when he’s finished with Eames. He puts his arms behind his head and grins at Eames’ disheveled shock at having just gotten the _other_ best blow job of his life.

 

“Christ, you look like you just successfully brokered peace between Egypt and Israel,” Eames grouses, getting his pants back together, looking everywhere but at Arthur. He wants to offer to get Arthur off, too – he wants so much more than that, really, but - _seventeen_.

 

“Yeah, blowing a guy like you is a real hardship,” Arthur answers. “When can I see you again?”

 

“Arthur,” Eames says. “This needs to stop.”

 

Arthur snorts derisively at him. “No,” he says plainly. Eames gives him a scandalized look and Arthur shrugs. “No,” he says again.

 

“Oh, you call the shots, do you?” Eames spits, annoyed.

 

“Generally. What’s the problem, you seemed pretty pleased a minute ago. Maybe you need your dick sucked more often? Because that’s definitely something we can arrange.”

 

“ _Jesus_ , the mouth on you,” Eames shakes his head. “You’re _seventeen_.”

 

“Big fucking deal,” Arthur counters. “What’s today, the 28th? I’ll be eighteen in exactly a month, if that makes you happy. And I already know what I want for my birthday, by the way.”

 

“Your _parents_ –“ Eames replies.

 

“Have you _met_ my parents, Eames?” Arthur snaps. “They’re sexy forty year old swingers with a hot tub in the yard next to their personal marijuana farm. They’re cool with what I do. They host orgies when I’m out with friends all night, for fuck’s sake, I’m not kidding –“

 

“God,” Eames moans. “God, I don’t want to hear these things, please, Arthur.”

 

“Fuck. Fuck, you are _repressed_ , you know that?” Arthur says in a resigned way that Eames doesn’t like the sound of at all. “I don’t know what England was like, but, Jesus – try to leave the Old World behind a little bit, huh? We’re in the middle of a sexual revolution, man. All parties are willing. _Live_ a little.”

 

Eames has just stood there silently for this, eyes closed, rubbing his forehead, Arthur staring at him hard enough to bore holes.

 

“Oh, fuck _this_ ,” Arthur says, grabbing his bag and getting out of the chair.

 

Eames latches onto his wrist as tightly as he can and gently yanks him back before he can disappear out of Doe Library, out of his life. “Arthur, wait,” he says. “I want one thing.”  
  
“Fuck, _name it_ ,” Arthur says with no reserve whatsoever.

 

“I want to go on a proper date with you. In a month. A date. Something that doesn’t involve clandestine blow jobs.”

 

“Are you _hearing_ yourself?” Arthur grimaces. Eames increases the pressure on his wrist and Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, fine, okay, whatever. A _date_ ,” he replies, like it’s the squarest thing in the world. “ _Fuck_.”

 

Eames lets his wrist go and watches Arthur thread his fingers through his hair. He shakes his head at Eames, but his eyes go tender. “Can I get a fucking kiss, at least? Since I apparently have to go without cock for an entire month?”

 

“You’re not seeing anyone else, then?” Eames caresses his shoulder, the taut muscles of Arthur’s upper arm.

 

Arthur shrugs. “I love cock, but – I really like you,” he says with the same honesty he’s displayed since they first met.

 

Eames pulls him in for a kiss that lasts until the sun shifts entirely out of view of the little window overlooking Wheeler Hall. Then he walks Arthur home slowly, their shoulders bumping together, hands glancing off one another, the occasional hip-check happening the entire way.

 

 

**Chapter 4**

 

June is full and ripe, the year now just teetering on the cusp of tipping from potential to kinetic, all the buds that are out on the trees and bushes on the verge of bursting.

 

It’s all something of a blur for Eames. His days pass in the presence of both the Frankfurt School and Arthur like they’ll never end, the sun not setting until around half eight, and then it seems like the weeks fly by in retrospect. The city is still shaky and anxious, but the sheer presence of cops has gradually died down.

 

They get to know each other. Arthur is whip-smart, as sharp and intense as his parents, mature beyond his years, as well as startlingly more experienced than Eames is in just about every way. And he knows what he wants with a kind of singular concentration that Eames doesn’t think he’s seen in anyone else before.

 

And what he wants is still, fascinatingly, _Eames_.

 

Arthur borrows the car and drives them into San Francisco where they go to the de Young Museum, the Presidio, hang out on Crissy Field and attend free concerts. He takes Eames to the Castro, just to walk around, shocked that Eames has lived in the Bay Area a full year already and never been. Eames grins like an idiot, confides that he’s never seen so many homosexuals in one place in his life and Arthur replies enthusiastically, “I know right, isn’t it great?” and holds his hand as they stroll around, window shopping. Nobody bothers them.

 

They spend that evening in mid-June on a picnic blanket in Golden Gate park, half listening to a double-bill with Creedence and Jefferson Airplane, half just mooning at each other and smiling, insects flying around in the late afternoon sun that’s grown hazy with the dust kicked up from twirling Hippies and pot smoke. He looks up at Arthur from where he’s laying on their blanket, and Arthur gently strokes his hair and feeds him fat green grapes from the Sonoma Valley, one by one by one. He picks the tiny white flowers that litter the grass on the hillside they're on and sticks them in Eames' hair.

 

It’s incredible, idyllic; Eames feels like he’s living in a Maxfield Parrish painting. He’s never been happier in his life.

 

They agree that Arthur will celebrate his eighteenth birthday first with his pack of no doubt extremely hip high school friends getting his first legal drunk on at any number of local watering holes. He’ll stay out for as long as he wishes, and then he’ll come over to Eames’ to finally collect his “gift.”

 

Eames is a mess of nerves when June 28th finally comes, compulsively tidying his room and smoking through all of his cigarettes. He’s genuinely surprised when Arthur shows up at his place by eleven, dressed to the nines in another pair of beautifully tailored slacks and a matching waistcoat, a black bowler derby hat tilted rakishly to one side of his head.

 

He’s grinning like the Cheshire Cat when Eames opens the door and says excitedly, “Have you heard, did you hear?”  
  
“Hear what?” Eames asks, perplexed.

 

“There’s a riot. In New York, on Christopher Street,” he answers, breathlessly happy. “The gays are taking over Greenwich Village, it was on the news.”

 

“Really,” Eames is at a loss for anything to say as Arthur walks over to his tv and switches on the 11 o’clock news, plops down on the couch. Images of gay men, lesbians and drag queens screaming down armed NYPD and getting arrested by the dozen flash across the screen.

 

“Incredible,” Arthur whispers, a look of pure _pride_ on his face.

 

Eames turns to him and takes his hand, says, “Happy birthday.”

 

“This has been the most incredible day. I’m not even kidding, Eames. It’s been – it’s been perfect,” he says. He looks blissfully content. “And now I’m here, and I’m with you, and it’s only going to get better.” He shakes his head in wonder at Eames and grasps him by the chin, kissing him slowly, deeply. Thoroughly.

 

Eames’ heart feels impossibly large under his ribs when he wraps himself around Arthur and guides him to his bed.

 

++++

 

Late August is hot and sweaty and beautiful and fucking perfect in Berkeley, Eames thinks. Though he suspects everything is probably hot and sweaty and beautiful and fucking perfect when you’re in love.

 

Arthur will be living with his parents for at least his first semester of college, most likely – and then he’s kicking around the idea of finding a place of his own. Eames is considering maybe shacking up together at some point, but – they both want Arthur to have the college experience. They’re taking it one step at a time.

 

Nowadays he spends most nights at Eames’, however. If it’s hot enough and clear, they’ll take Eames’ mattress up to the roof and sleep there.

 

They’re doing just that one night, smoking a joint and cuddling on Eames’ mattress, looking up at the stars, when Arthur turns to him with a smile so wide and genuine that his dimples are practically craters and says, “I fucking love this place. Holy shit, Eames – I love this place, I love this summer. And I love you. Christ, I love you so much.”

 

“God, Arthur,” Eames says, his throat constricting with emotion. “I love you so much there are times I feel like my chest might burst.”

 

Eames pauses for a moment, just looking at this person next him, and says, “Can you do that? Can you fall in love with a place, like you can fall in love with a person, do you think? Can you love them both at the same time? Are we allowed to love _this much_?” Eames asks.

 

Arthur smiles and smiles, squeezes his hand. He knows the answer. “Fuck yes, we are. _Eames_. We **are**.” After a bit he whispers, “You know what? I wish I could make a bed of stars for us to lie down on, Eames. We could dream together like that. It would be so nice.” He pulls Eames closer to him, arranges him so his head is pillowed on Arthur’s chest, kisses Eames’ hair. “I’d make a bed of California stars, in a big mound, all soft and glowing. Just for you and me.”

 

They sleep peacefully up on the roof, the soft brilliance of the Milky Way unfolding above them like a pair of cradling arms.


End file.
